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Thomas in College Part 3 (7 Friends)
This is the third episode of 7 Friends Whole Story Thomas spent the next few weeks rushing around, getting his things packed and saying farewells. He simply could not wait, Knapford College, a college of railways and everybody else wishes, it was like a dream. And the best part of the college was that it accepted virtually anyone, as long as they had at least three C or above grades at GCSE. And they were a clever lot, Thomas’s group of friends, so getting in would be easy. He had written out a CV, sent it along, and had been accepted. Everyday Thomas looked eagerly at the calendar, waiting for the summer holidays to end so that he could finally go. Percy was also excited, though was less eager to leave his dorm and classes and Mrs. Ronan than Thomas was. But they were able to phone whenever they liked, and Mrs Ronan was able to come up and visit them as well, as the Railway owned a hotel for relatives of the students as well. Thomas was excited to say the least, although he did enjoy their two-week break to North Wales, especially their ride on the Talyllyn Railway, which Wilbert had helped to run when it was taken over by volunteers. At last, the day came. Mrs Ronan cried as she kissed both of her students’ goodbye, before waving a tearful goodbye to them at the station, where they had met the others, for the train to London, where they would catch a special train for Knapford. Thomas knew that the others were missing school as well, but they had agreed to come here in the first place. Nevertheless, Thomas couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty for making his friends feel this way. But he was too excited, this would be an adventure, he could feel it. Their train arrived at London 10 minutes late, and they had to rush out of their carriage to make it on time. Then Edward, calm as always, pointed out that their train wasn’t due to leave for another hour, so they went to the Starbucks for drinks and food. “So, how’s everyone feeling?”, asked Thomas brightly. “A bit sick, but only because I’m not used to long journeys like that”, said Daisy. “Let me rephrase that”, said Thomas calmly, “How everyone feeling about going?”. The general response was pretty good, but there were a few who didn’t look too excited. Toby was looking a bit down, because he’d never been away from home for long before now. Duck looked sad, he was worried that people would make fun of him for his leg. Percy was missing his comfty bed, he would need a lot of looking after by the others when they finally arrived. But everyone else looked as though they were looking forward. Edward was looking through the guidebook to the college he’s bought over the internet. Gordon and Henry were chatting contentedly about model trains. James was admiring his reflection in the window. Donald and Douglas were talking about the courses they were doing at the college, and Daisy was once more listening to her MP3 player. Emily was chatting to Mavis about something, but Thomas couldn’t understand it, it was all noise and no words to him. “Shit, we’d better get moving”, cried Edward, looking at his watch. Thomas checked his own. Their train would be here in less than two minutes. They charged out onto the platform, Thomas dragging Percy and his luggage behind him. They got out onto the platform, but there was no train to take them. “We couldn’t have missed it could we?”, asked Duck anxiously. “Trust Edward to get the times wrong”, sniggered James, earning himself a punch on the arm from Edward. “No, we would have heard an announcement about it”, said Thomas, checking his watch and looking wildly about for answer. Gordon looked like he was about to say something, but was interrupted by the loud speaker. “The next train to arrive at Platform 4 is the 12:30 non-stop express to Elsbridge. Passengers for the Knapford College, to travel in the Pullman carriage at the rear of the train. The next train arriving at Platform 4 is the 12:30 non-stop express to Elsbridge, thank you”. Thomas looked wildly around, and a deep blast from a steam whistle answered him. With all the grace of a Gresley A4, a long train glided into the platform, pulling a rake of green and cream coloured coaches, pulled by a powerful, muscular looking blue engine with red boiler stripes, belching smoke and steam from it’s funnel. With a gentle hiss, the brakes were applied and the mighty engine slowed to a crawl, before coming to a standstill in front of them. Thomas was speechless, as was everyone else. Gordon in particular was staring at the fantastic sight before him, open mouthed, looking as though he’d never seen such a beautiful site in his life. A smiling guard came over to them. “Knapford College?”, he asked. They nodded. “Well then, if you’d like to make your way to the back of the train when our Pullman coach arrives, it’s just being shunted into position, so it’ll be ready in about 5 minutes”. He smiled as he walked back to his van. “What a beauty”, whispered Emily. “Interesting design”, said Edward, “It’s definitely an LNER engine, modified A1 or something”. “I don’t think so”, said Henry, looking closely at the engine, “The LNER engines didn’t have straight running plates like this one. Looks LMS to me, like a Princess Pacific”. “It can’t be LMS”, said Duck, “It doesn’t have a Belpaire firebox. Pretty much all LMS locos had Belpaire fireboxes”. “Lets correct all the technical difficulties on the train shall we?”, said Mavis, “This train will be leaving soon, with or without us”. Thomas looked, and saw that a diesel shunter had pushed a luxurious looking Pullman coach to the rear of the train. They picked up their bags, and headed towards the back of the train. “Come on then, lets go Gordon”, said Thomas. There was no reply. “Gordon?”, said Thomas. Gordon was still looking captivated by the mighty engine. Thomas tapped on Gordon’s broad shoulders Gordon started and looked as though he had just woken up. “Huh? What?”, he said distractedly. “Time to go Gordon”, said Thomas pleasantly. “I know. I’m sorry, it’s just, there’s something about this engine. Feels like, I’m connected to it somehow. Don’t you feel that?”. “Not really”, said Thomas, “I mean, it’s a beautiful engine alright, but I don’t feel connected to it at all”. “Meh, just me thinking out loud”, said Gordon, smiling, “Right, we’d better get on this train then”. He sprinted off to the rear of the train, Thomas hot on his heels. It took them a while to find their compartment on the coach. Thomas never thought it would have been this big inside, but it was pretty vast. They went through compartment after compartment before they found their own. The occupants of the other compartments seemed little bothered by the intruders. One group consisted of a group of 6 boys wearing different coloured jumpers, with one boy in a yellow jumper playing a guitar. Another compartment had only two occupants, a tall, thin middle aged man, wearing a leather jacket, and a young girl with shining golden hair than rivalled Daisy’s. Finally, they reached theirs at the end of the coach. Thomas gasped when they stepped inside. The room was large and specious, with a plasma screen television in one corner, and a number of games consoles attached. There was a small fridge in one corner, from which Henry had taken a bottle of lemonade, and a large leather sofa with footstalls. “Wow”, said James. Thomas agreed, though he just gaped in awe. He then heard a shrill whistle from outside, and stuck his head out of the window. The guard had blown his whistle and waved his green flag. A few seconds later, there was another deep whistle from the engine at the front, and then a loud hiss as steam rushed into the engine’s cylinders and the mighty engine lurched forward with the coaches slowly moving behind it, picking up speed as the controls in the cab were adjusted to make the best use of the steam. They picked up speed fast and must have been doing 30 mph at least when Thomas finally drew his head in. 5 minutes later, they had all settled down and were watching Percy and Edward play a very violent and graphic game on one of the consoles. Edward kept on winning, but eventually they decided to have lunch and went to the dining car to purchase food. When they came back, they saw that one of the boys from the compartment close to theirs was standing in the corridor. The boy was wearing a green t-shirt and jeans. He looked up as they approached, and they saw that he had a very happy, excitable face with kind, shining eyes. “Hello”, he said politely, “You for the Knapford College?”. “Yes that’s right”, said Toby, “Are you?”. “Indeed I am”, said the boy proudly, “Me and all the lads in my compartment are going there. Two of them already do, they live on Sodor even, they completed their first year and are going in for their second. They’re called Skarloey and Rheneas”. James sniggered, then yelped as Gordon stamped on his foot. The boy chuckled. “I thought they were funny too, but then I found out they’re Sudrian names, and that changed it. They’re really nice though, really mature for their age as well, which is good, coz they sometimes need to keep the rest of us in order ”, he chuckled. “Who are the rest of you then?”, asked Edward. “Well there’s Skarloey and Rheneas, who I just told you about. Then there’s Handel Hughes, but he insists we call him ‘Sir Handel’, his dad’s a baronet you see. Then there’s Duncan Rudy, he plays a guitar, but not very well now I come to think of it”, he chuckled, “Then there’s Will Ruston, but we call him Rusty because his dad restores old steam engines for a living. I’m Peter Samuel Stuart, but my friends call me Peter Sam”, he finished grinning. “Well it’s nice to meet you Peter Sam”, said Thomas politely, “We’re all from the same area, and we decided to come here when Year 11 finished”. “Well you made a good choice”, smiled Peter Sam, “Just a shame that there’s so few of us going to the College anymore. Lack of interest you see, apart from a few local people, not many people go there now. Still, some years have been better than others”, he grinned, “And we’ll have to see what happens. Anyway, I’ll see you later, sounds like Duncan and Sir Handel have stopped fighting”. He chuckled, and grinned again as he went through the doors of his compartment and closed them with a small click. “Nice guy”, observed Henry as they settled down to eat the pizzas they bought in the dining car. “I thought he was very cute”, said Mavis, blushing slightly. For some reason, Thomas noticed, Toby looked crestfallen at this piece of news, but looked up again as Percy spoke. “Could I borrow someone’s phone for a bit”, he asked the room in general. “Sure”, said Daisy, holding out a pink mobile phone with a small plastic fairy dangling from it. “Thanks”, said Percy quietly, and carefully holding the phone in his hand, ambled quietly out of the compartment, gently sliding the door across as he left. “I wonder who he’s callin’”, asked Donald to no-one in particular. “Mum I expect”, said Thomas, “She said for him to call her whenever he felt like it. Misses her I expect, he’s never been far away from her before now”. “Thomas”, said Edward quietly, “If Percy’s homesickness has already kicked in at this stage of our time on Knapford, imagine what he’s gonna be like later on”. “I’ll look after him”, said Thomas, “You know how protective I am of him, and if he gets really bad, I’ll ask Mum if she can come and see him for a bit”. Edward nodded, and leant back in his seat. Thomas looked at his watch. It was nearly 5 o’clock. “How much further to Knapford”, he asked Toby, who was holding a map of the route they were travelling on. “Well, we’ve still got a ways to go yet”, he said, “We should be passing Stafford next, then Crewe, Preston, Lancaster, Carnforth, Carlisle, then Barrow, then we’ll be there”, he grinned. They all grinned, except Henry, who looked darkly out of the window. Henry didn’t like the mention of Crewe, he had been very ill once when he was younger. His doctor had given him medicine, and sent him to Wales for a bit, but when Henry had been showing signs of improvement, he had been hit by a car and had had to have an operation at Crewe, due their local hospital being out of service at the time. The operation had really taken it out of him, and the very mention of this accursed place brought back painful memories of his ordeal. Thomas was just contemplating going to the buffet car for a cup of soda, when they heard loud voices from outside, and as they opened the doors they saw that Percy was being hassled by three unpleasantly familiar figures, who appeared to be trying to take Daisy’s phone off him. “Percy, what’s happen…What are you doing here?”, asked Thomas in alarm as he rushed to stand beside his best friend. Diesel looked at him and smirked. “I’m going to Knapford”, he sneered, “My parents decided to buy a house there over this summer. What are you doing here?”. “Going to the Knapford College”, said Daisy smartly, as Thomas looked at her furiously. The last thing he wanted was for his arch enemy, who hated everything to do with him and his friends, to know that he was going to a place that was related to the subject he was bullied for. “Knapford College?”, sneered Diesel, “Appropriate, eh choo-choo boy?”. Thomas leapt forward and, using all his strength, hit Diesel smack in the face with a clenched fist. ‘Arry and Bert went for Thomas, but Gordon and Henry blocked them, grabbing them round the waists and rugby-tackling them to the floor. There was a loud commotion as a compartment door suddenly opened, and out rushed it’s occupants, including Peter Sam, who was looking around urgently for the source of the noise. “I say, what’s going on here?”, asked a boy wearing a blue shirt, who Thomas immediately guessed as being the boy Sir Handel Peter Sam had told him about. “Nothing to do with you”, spat Diesel, rubbing his face where Thomas had punched him. “Well, sounds like you’re bothering my friends”, said Peter Sam, looking maliciously at the 3 troublemakers, “So if you’re wise, you’ll get out of this carriage and not bother us or anyone else for the rest of the journey”. Diesel looked enraged at this, but there wasn’t much he could do, he was greatly outnumbered and with his two best friends being slowly crushed under the weight of Henry and Gordon, he got up, red faced, and shoved past people to get to the carriage door, with Arry and Bert following him, clutching their stomachs and moaning slightly in pain. “Who were those idiots?”, quizzed a short boy wearing orange overalls, which Thomas guessed was Rusty. “Three small minded thugs who wouldn’t know common courtesy or good hygiene if it danced up to them and slapped them in their ugly pimpled faces”, replied Edward smartly. The others laughed, and introductions between both compartments were made, before each group retired to their compartments for the remainder of the trip. They soon reached Carlisle, where they had to stop for passengers, and then it was on to Barrow and Sodor for the 19 friends. As they thundered up the West Coast of England, it began to get dark, and Thomas looked out of the window at the body of water that separated England from Ireland, Sodor and the Isle of Man also known as the Irish Sea. They reached Barrow at around 8 o’clock and everyone was beginning to feel sleepy. Molly and James were curled up together on one of the couches, and every now and then, someone would stretch or yawn. Thomas was fairly sleepy too, it was only the occasional whistle of the engine up front that kept him awake. After a brief stop at Barrow to drop passengers, Thomas saw a large green engine with red stripes and a number 3 on it’s tender steam slowly by with a train of what looked like fish vans. Henry was already looking, he was staring out of the window with much the same captivated look Gordon had had back in London. “I wonder if that engine’s owned by the railway college”, mused Henry to himself, “If it is, I think I’ll make a special request to drive it”. “Can you do that though?”, asked Gordon. “I think you can”, said Duck thoughtfully, “I remember seeing something about it on the school’s website, but I can’t remember correctly”. “Well if you can, I’m gonna put in a request for the Pacific up front”, said Gordon cheerfully”. “I wonder if they have anything older”, wondered Emily, “I’d love to drive one of the really old engines, something like a Stirling Single. I remember drawing one of those for art, such beautiful engines, and so fast too for their time”. “I’d like a 4-4-0”, mused Edward, “Like a D40 or something similar, or even a pre-Grouping engine, like one of the old Furness locos”. They all started discussing which engine they’d like to drive. Thomas honestly couldn’t think. An A4 Pacific or LMS Royal Scot would have been his choice, but he couldn’t help but picture himself driving an engine much like the one he and his grandfather made for his model railway back home. Thomas smiled as he thought of home. He would miss his grandfather and dorm, but this would be a real adventure for him. The train left Barrow, much to Thomas’s relief, and they steamed across a massive suspension bridge, and, with a powerful blast on the engine’s whistle, finally crossed onto Sodor. Thomas and his friends all exclaimed their delight, especially Thomas. However, they soon had to stop at a station called Vicarstown. Thomas didn’t pay too much attention, until a knock on their window from outside alerted him. Diesel, Arry and Bert were outside, grinning stupidly and hammering repeatedly on the window. The occupants responded with their traditional two-fingered salute, and Diesel looked furious at this, but the train departed at that moment, so there wasn’t much he could do. Thomas grinned to himself. An announcement from the guard told them that it would be non stop to Tidmouth with one stop at Knapford, and Thomas was greatly relieved to hear this. Several times, occupants from the compartment next door came to see how they were. Edward seemed to get on well Rheneas and Skarloey, and Percy too was enjoying the company of Peter Sam. Donald and Douglas talked about Scotland with Duncan, and Gordon and Sir Handel talked about express engines. Thomas was enjoying a conversation with Rusty, when they heard a whistle and the train began to slow. “Are we there?”, asked Percy sleepily. “Ah, we’re at Knapford”, said Rusty, “About another half an hour till we get to Tidmouth”. Thomas was about to reply, when he suddenly stared out of the window, utterly transfixed. The station they had arrived at was a junction that led out to a branchline which curved out of sight. But Thomas wasn’t paying attention to that, he was staring, open mouthed at the train at the platform. Two elderly looking coaches with brown paint stood behind a small blue tank engine, with red lining and a number 1 on it’s extended water tanks. Identical to the model he and Wilbert made for the train set back home! Thomas felt like running out of the train for a better look, but it was too late! With a hiss of steam and a blast on the whistle, the blue express engine heaved out of the station, with Thomas looking wistfully out of the window, a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Gordon”, he said quietly. “Ah-yup”, grunted Gordon, who was sitting lazily on the leather sofa. “When you said back in London that you were…connected somehow to the blue engine”, said Thomas slowly, “What sort of feeling did you get?” Gordon sat up and frowned thoughtfully. “Hmmm…sort of like…that I was meant to drive it you know?”, he said thoughtfully, “Like it was there specially for me. Why?”. “Because I got the same feeling when we stopped and I saw that little blue tank engine back there”, said Laurence, staring out of the window. “Thomas, I hate to break it to you, but there wasn’t an engine there”, said Gordon. Thomas looked around in alarm. “What…yes there was!”, he said indignantly. “Thomas,there wasn’t”, said Goprdon seriously, “But I did hear a story about how there was a little blue engine that blew up around that area once. Apparently, it’s an omen. Many people have claimed to have seen it, and each person has died in…horrific ways, each more gruesome than the last…” Thomas was silent. Could that have been a ghost train he’d seen? Had he sealed his fate by seeing the haunted engine of Tidmouth. However, he knew it had all been a joke as Gordon whipped out a digital camera and Thomas was momentarily blinded as the flash went off. “Sorry”, grinned Gordon, “But the opportunity was just lying there, begging me to take it!”. Swearing, Thomas leapt on Gordon, but Gordon was ready and caught Thomas, pinning him to the ground. The two laughed helplessly as Gordon got Thomas into a headlock. The others were cheering for them both, but then there was another whistle, and they knew they were at Tidmouth. Thomas spat a piece of Gordon’s shirt out of his mouth, and began getting his bags together. They had arrived! Thomas was unsure at what was going to happen next, but he knew that whatever it was would change al their lives forever. A great adventure was awaiting them, and it lay just beyond those carriage doors. Character *Thomas Johnson *Gordon Blue *Emiy Emeralds *Molly Jefferson *James Redlin *Percy Gordy *Toby Brownly *Edward LeBlue *Daisy Hofferson *Duck Western *Mavis Devlin *Diesel Devlin *'Arry and Bert Smelters *Narrow Gauge Friends Location *Tidmouth *Knapford *Crewe *Barrow Category:Episode Category:7 Friends Category:Season 1 (7 Friends) Category:Sodor High School